


Scenes From a War (Reveille, Reveille)

by tomato_greens



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, F/M, Implied Underage, Implied or Off-stage Rape/Non-con, M/M, Please read the warnings in the author's note!, anti-Semitism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-04
Updated: 2012-05-04
Packaged: 2017-11-04 19:45:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/397529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomato_greens/pseuds/tomato_greens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If you have any questions,” the matron said, but she was an A-class, Erik could smell it on her, and he couldn’t bring himself to ask.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scenes From a War (Reveille, Reveille)

**Author's Note:**

> This is an unabashed after school special. Implied underage rape in one character’s background; nothing graphic, but some pretty creepy language so please be wary! There is also a scene in a concentration camp which includes clear anti-Semitic language and beliefs. Be safe, you wonderful people. I hope both historical and comic book dates and facts are relatively accurate, but I had to hand-wave some stuff (for example, Wanda and Pietro may or may not exist; the ’60s counterculture ended up sped up by about five years; the totally ridiculous weeklong timeline of XM:FC was stretched into a few months). I promise a happy ending, mostly––this is an after school special, after all!

Erik was thirteen the last time his mother had combed his hair; of course he was too old for it by then, but she said she’d always found something calming in the act of it, the ritual, fifty strokes (her own long hair took a hundred, Erik knew), and even then Erik had found it soothing, too––the way the evening closed around them as his mother handed him her little silver-backed mirror. It was the only thing left that hadn’t been stolen, or sold off: the two deep cracks that ran the length of it were excuse enough to hold on a little longer. 

“My Erik,” she said that night, after he tried to stuff the mirror back in her pocket, “oh, my Erik,” and kissed the crown of his head.  
 “Mama,” he protested, waving her away, “don’t, I’m too old for that.”

“You’ll never be too old to be my child, Erik Lehnsherr,” she said, solemnly, then pinched the back of his neck.

“Mama!” he cried.

“And don’t you forget it,” she admonished, hitting him gently on the nose with the mirror. “Good night, sweetheart.”

Two weeks later, the mirror had been taken and Erik’s hair shorn; his mother lay dead, crumpled at the feet of Klaus Schmidt.

-

“What do you think, Charles,” he snarled, “I was nearly fourteen on the edge of my first heat––what do you think happened?”

“Oh,” said Charles, softly, and rested a hand on the air above Erik’s shoulder, “my friend.”

-

Erik learned about it in school, obviously, when he was ten, in a special program all the O-class students had to go to; they had to miss Physical Education, which pained him, though the calisthenics were boring and did little to let him stomp out his energy––the others got to play games, but of course you couldn’t let an O-class get in the way. That’s how A-class rampages started, for one thing, and anyhow you wouldn’t want an O-class to get a bruise: it would set bad habits. 

There’d been too many euphemisms, he remembered, and a lot of talk about feelings, which he found distinctly suspect. A pamphlet with one poorly mimeographed diagram was distributed. The O-class on it was brawny and blond, smiling widely. Erik felt quite sure he wouldn’t have to cover his head when he was married, the way Erik would. The injustice of it nearly choked him. 

“If you have any questions,” the matron said, but she was an A-class, Erik could smell it on her, and he couldn’t bring himself to ask.

-

“Don’t you see, Charles,” Raven said, “we can’t fix this by hiding!” She flickered blue, then blonde again. “This is just the beginning; mutants are the next step.” The sign in her hand read AN OMEGA NEEDS AN ALPHA LIKE A FISH NEEDS A BICYCLE on one side, and BETA SUPPORT on the other, to reappropriate the language and take class out of it, she’d said.

“Don’t get arrested,” Charles sighed, and hugged her. 

She pushed him off. “I don’t need your approval,” she said pointedly, and slammed the door on her way out.

“Am I so awful?” Charles asked Erik, who was quietly drinking his coffee at the kitchen table.

“Not the worst I’ve ever met,” Erik said.

“That’s less comforting than you might imagine,” Charles snapped.

-

There had always been laws against A-class gatherings, because putting too many in one place turned almost inevitably to bloodshed, but it wasn’t like that inside, where the officers goaded them into it for sport. 

“It’s because they’re animals they behave this way,” he overheard a B-class officer explain once, “they can’t control themselves in their breeding frenzies,” but what, Erik thought grimly, could a B-class know about it––the terrible fever in his blood, the ache he hadn’t been ready for, the fights that broke out around him and consumed him in one.

-

Charles watched with interest as Erik ran himself a glass of water from the sink.

“What?” he snapped, tucking the case back into his toiletries bag.

“I’ve just never known anyone who used the pill before,” Charles admitted, looking embarrassed. “It’s––not done. Not talked about.”

“Lucky you,” Erik said. “Let’s get back on the road.”

-

Anya was born when Erik was eighteen, a brave new life for their brave new world. Magda had been so happy during the pregnancy, caressing his belly, bringing him mint to chew, and afterwards it had been so much better because he’d had so much to lose, his daughter, his _daughter_. And then he had lost them.

He didn’t think about them often.

-

“Charles Xavier,” the man introduced himself after, offering his hand, as they shivered the Atlantic out of their systems. “And you’re Erik Lehnsherr.”

Erik almost took the hand, but then Charles’s shoulders _hitched_ ; it was subtle, as far as scenting went, but it wasn’t like Erik didn’t know what he was looking at. “I could have told you that,” he growled, and turned away.

“Wait!” Charles called, hand now outstretched. “Sorry, I’m––sorry, sometimes I can’t help it.”

“Which, the telepathy or the hunting instinct?” Erik asked dryly.

Charles winced, shrugged. “I’m working on my self-control,” he said, and Erik stayed after all.

-

“Erik, lovely Erik,” Herr Schmidt said, cupping the back of his head, his hair long enough for Herr Schmidt to card his fingers through. “You’ll make someone such a good little Omega someday.”

“Nobody says Omega anymore,” Erik said, mulishly, combative; he performed well today, earned the rebellion. 

“Oh, excuse me,” Herr Schmidt said, his smile indulgent, clapping him across the shoulder. “O-class. Does that make you feel less special, Erik? You shouldn’t want to, you know––you should stand out, my brilliant boy. Now try and move that coin again. Yes, just so. Marvelous, marvelous.”

-

Raven was usually a B-class when she was blonde. Her scent was neutral, not unpleasant, a background filler. 

“You shouldn’t have to hide,” Erik assured her, though when she was blue she smelled like he did.

-

Erik could still remember asking, “What makes an Omega and not an Alpha?” He couldn’t have been more than six––too early to tell, though his pediatrician had given a great laugh and told his mother, “Alpha, no doubt, he’ll be over six feet if he’s an inch.”

His father paused in stirring the broth bubbling on the stove before him. “Why do you ask?” 

Erik shrugged. “Wondering,” he said.

“I suppose an Omega is a person to whom God has given the gift of bearing children,” his father said thoughtfully. “And an Alpha is a person to whom God has given the gift of giving them.” 

“But Mama had––”

“Not everything’s set in stone, dear,” said his father, and then Erik got bored and and set the ladle to stirring itself.

“Oh, marvelous,” said his father, kissing the side of his head. “What a trick already!” 

-

“God, god,” Erik said, clutching Charles to him, too desperate to be embarrassed, “please, I can’t, I need––”

Charles hushed him, looking alarmed; Erik had never admitted needing anything in his life. “Of course, Erik, anything you want,” he said, and he didn’t even sound patronizing.

“Suppressants,” Erik panted, “the cycle was early, I didn’t expect it, I’m not ready––”

“Of course,” Charles said, extricating himself. His disappointment was tangible. “I’ll run to the pharmacy; write down whatever you need.”

-

Until his mother died, Erik had thought the identity cards were the worst of it––round them up, register them, stamp them indelibly with their worst vulnerabilities, he thought. The heavy, stylized J stamped over his information was bad enough; the _Klasse: O_ under his fingerprints was almost worse. You could always stop believing in God. 

-

In bed, Charles had an unfortunate tendency to be gentle. He’d card his fingers through Erik’s hair, or press kisses to his shoulders. It felt intimate.

“You don’t have to, you know,” Erik told him. “I don’t need to be coddled. I don’t need you in my head.” 

“I like to,” Charles said; and, “Let me. Please.”

-

“Spicy for an O, aren’t you?” Control said, chuckling plummily, his hand lingering on Erik’s shoulder. “We could use more ones like you.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Erik. By now he didn’t even have to grit his teeth when he said it anymore. “I appreciate all that MI6––all that you have done for me.”

“No, no, Magneto,” Control said, shaking his head, his hand like a stone around Erik’s neck, heavier, heavier. “I appreciate all you’re about to do for _me_.”

Never again, thought Erik. 

-

Angel seemed like a B-class until you got to know her; she took injections twice a month, but underneath it, sometimes you could still tell she’d been born an Alpha.

Erik would never ask, but Hank did, once, while Erik was nursing a coffee in one of the numerous sitting rooms; Angel patted him on the cheek and said, “Honey, sometimes you’ve got to be who you are,” not entirely unkindly.

“But you’re making life so much more difficult for yourself,” said Hank, who seemed to know neither what he was nor what he wanted to be, and whose scent was as confusing. “A-class––I mean, who wouldn’t want to be A-class?”

Angel didn’t answer for a long moment, her wings fluttering out behind her. “Look,” she said, finally, clearly trying for flippant but more honestly than Erik would have, “I’ve got enough going against me already, what’s one little thing more?” When his shoulders sagged under the weight of her confession, she reached out and said, “Hank, the world’s already got it in for me. I don’t need to play into it, too.”

“Huh,” said Hank.

-

“Don’t let the bastards grind you down,” advised the drunk man three stools over. He nearly fell, righted himself with an aggrieved sigh. It was a seedy place, dark, dank. There were two Omegas giggling and kissing to his right––it was that kind of bar.

“I’ll do my best,” Erik said, and took his finger of Scotch neat. 

-

“I don’t know that we should play chess tonight,” Charles said, not looking Erik in the eye. 

“What?” Erik said. “Why, is my O-class intellect just not enough for you? Am I not a fierce opponent? Do I disappoint you, Charles?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” Charles said, looking sick, holding a hand up as if warding against him. “I just––Cerebro is tiring, and my control isn’t––where it should be.”

Erik eyed him warily. Charles did look exhausted, but when didn’t they all, the past few months. “Which, the telepathy or the hunting instinct?” he asked.

Charles laughed ruefully, and hid his face behind a hand. “The latter, I’m afraid,” he admitted. “I wouldn’t want to do anything so gauche as to––well, scent you, or something.”

Erik laughed, a single, dissatisfied bark. “Is that all?” he asked. “You did that the first time we met.”

“It seemed enough,” Charles said, fussy, still embarrassed.

“I’ll take black tonight,” said Erik, and smiled.

-

Magda was Erik’s first––everything. 

He’d always expected her to be his last everything, too.

-

Raven coaxed Angel into coming to a march with her. They came back flushed, proud with excitement, born anew. “I never knew it could be like that,” Angel said, the least sarcastic Erik had ever heard her. “They even thought my wings were groovy.”

“Maybe you should go,” Charles said to Erik later that night. “You might like it.”

“Flaunting myself has never been an objective of mine,” Erik countered, scowling down at the chessboard.

Charles’s foot suddenly found its way in between his. “That’s odd,” he said, his smile huge, “it’s been one of mine for ages now.”

-

Before the suppressants were universally approved for over-the-counter purchase in 1955, Erik had to take days off every few months to work himself through it, shivering, alone, with three locks on the door and holding all the windows shut so no wandering A-classes could decide to help themselves. 

There was never any question about it, for him.

-

The coin goes through Schmidt’s––Shaw’s––head with a gratifyingly precise trajectory.

Erik takes the helmet and kicks him twice: once, in the scent glands on his neck; once, in the groin.

-

Charles _reached_ , and Erik moved the satellite.

“Oh, Erik,” said Charles, crying, too, and Erik reached for him, unable to stop himself, and then they were finally, finally kissing, and it was awful and perfect at once, Charles twined around his thoughts, loathe to let go.

Sean catcalled and, distantly, something shattered. Erik wasn’t entirely sure his eardrums weren’t included.

“Better see to the damages,” Charles whispered, and they separated, Charles’s fingers still framing Erik’s face. “Chess tonight?”

“I might have other plans,” Erik said wickedly, and Charles snorted his agreement.

-

Charles is lying on the sand.

-

“Can you imagine? A brain aneurysm at his age! What a shame,” sighed the anonymous secretary, her hair piled on the top of her head, watching the ambulance with Control’s body in it out the office window.

“Yes,” Erik said, “an awful waste.”

-

Charles is lying on the sand, and he’s not getting up.

-

“This doesn’t mean I agree with you,” Erik said irritably. “It’s only a matter of time.”

“I know you think so,” Charles said, and wrapped himself up closer, holding onto Erik’s hands. He kissed each fingertip and his breath softened, evened.

“We’ll destroy each other one day, then,” Erik said when he was sure Charles was asleep.

 _I won’t let us,_ Charles murmured sleepily in return.

-

“Charles,” Erik says, then again, louder, pushes Moira out of the way and runs for him. 

-

“Your parents were perverts, you know,” Herr Schmidt said to Erik in the last conversation they’d ever have before the Allies broke through the fences.

“Excuse me?” said Erik. The hair on the back of his neck stood up, the metal around him humming into his awareness.

“Denied the natural order of things,” Herr Schmidt went on, “your mother having you the way she did, Alpha and all––oh, don’t look at me like that, dear boy, I only mean you should really learn your place so as not to make the same mistakes they did.”

“Mistakes,” said Erik, regretting anything he’d ever said about his parents to anyone. “My place.”

Herr Schmidt gestured around them. “Look at where you are, my Erik, my brightest spitfire of a pupil,” he said, “and look at where they ended.”

-

“Erik, I––I can’t feel my legs,” Charles says. Raven gasps. 

“ _Charles_ ,” says Erik, stricken.

-

Erik did finally go to one of the marches with them, though only one of them, and only when Raven promised it wouldn’t devolve into violence like more and more of them had been lately––the last thing he needed was his name recorded in some New York precinct’s overnight logbook. It was loud, riotous; he hadn’t expected the joy twined up in the anger. 

Angel let a stranger tangle flowers in her hair and Raven had a coterie of self-proclaimed Alphas following her around. It should have been unbelievable, but there it was.

-

Charles glances over at Emma Frost, Janos Quested, Azazel, standing back to back in hostile territory without Schmidt to rally behind. Moira is throwing them a truly impressive death glare when you consider she’s not only just a human but also a B-class, and they’re all three A––Schmidt liked to surround himself with impressive people. “You should go with them, then,” Charles says.

Erik has to think. He needs time. There isn’t any.

“I’ve never done anything any A-class ordered me to do yet,” he says, and takes the helmet off. “Why should I start now?”


End file.
